Jordan/Becca's Omaha Visit

I'm really late in posting what a fun time we had when Jordan and Becca came to see us for two days (two weeks ago!). What a blessing it was for them to drive up, out of their way, to hang with us for a bit. I haven't seen my little bro and sis-in-law for a year so I treasured spending time with them. Jordan and Becca are currently on their way up to Delaware for the next few years where Jordan will be pursuing his Master's degree at an awesome university that offered to pay for his full tuition, offered him a sweet paying teaching job at the university, and offered him a job to do research for them next summer. Amazing. Chance of a lifetime. Blessing from Heaven. They're gonna love it!
We only had time to do a couple things during their visit, which included a trip to the Durham, the Old Market for dinner and a much anticipated pony ride in Cinderella's carriage...
we told Sydaleigh over a month ago that the next time we came back downtown with her she could ride this thing....and of course she remembered....so we paid $20 for a ride around the block...$20! Which I guess is cheaper than buying her her own horse....


we hit up downtown again the following day to go to the Hot Shops Art Studio's, which is so cool! This guy, pictured below, got the idea to convert an old 4 story Siemens mattress warehouse into an art studio. Glass blowers, blacksmiths, painters, photographers, pottery makers all working under the same roof....you can go in anytime you want and just walk into any studio thats door is open and watch them work....so that's just what we did...it was fabulous! The building has the really old elevators that you have to lift the doors up to get into-kind of scary, but super fun!





we filled up the rest of our time grilling out, playing bachi (?) ball,


of course Isaak had to break out the ladder, which is always a fan favorite with the guys...
hmmm, jumping off a ladder onto a swing and hoping you don't hit the ladder when you come back up...definitely a guy thing....



and then Isaak gave poor Becca a heart attack when he pushed Sydaleigh in her swing almost to the moon!


And no visit would be complete without a little friendly Wii competition...


if you can call this friendly...I recall getting pushed into the wall at one point....




Oh my gosh we had so much fun. Jordan and Becca are some of the most well rounded people I know -they are super flexible and usually up for anything. It blessed my heart to host them here. I was glad to hear that they have a spare room at their new place in DE because we will be crashing their pad next time-oh yeah! I'm planning my trip to DC!

Get a grip

Okay, I have found out in 1 single day that two more dear friends are moving away in the next few months...like far away...not down the street, but across the country and out of the country.
This is on top of the dear friend I said goodbye to today, who is moving out of the country, and also on top of the friend who is leaving next month, and on top of the friend who left last month, and on top of the friend who is moving across town which might as well be out of the country at the rate we're dropping friends around here!!!
I can't handle this all at once!!!
Oh my gosh, give a girl a break...my friends are dropping like flies!!
I think I need to sit down....I am sitting down....I think I need to go lay down....did I mention that it stinks being on "this end" of the leaving stick...

good weekend

Me and the girls have had a pretty good weekend so far, despite the fact that we've only seen Isaak for not even a couple hours at best. He is working a 14/15 hour night shift for an exercise this weekend so our time with him is pretty non excistant but we do a great job of holding our own, and we've kept busy. We went bowling for the first time Friday night. Well, the girls went bowling for the first time Friday night, obviously I've bowled before. It was an experience to say the least. Sydaleigh had a ball, she loved rolling her ball very slowly down the lane and jumped and clapped and cheered every time she knocked down the pins. Marvelly also had a ball, trying to run away from me every chance she got which made my time there a bit more aggravated. We tried it, once, but I will likely put bowling on the back burner for a few more years, until Marvelly is at least old enough to participate.
Saturday I shot senior portraits down in Plattsmouth, which was a blast. Nicole was so photogenic, super laid back, went with the flow...awesome to work with. I looked at my camera when we were wrapping up and noticed my counter was in the 600's. I thought that had to be a mistake, but nope, turns out I indeed took over 600 pictures. She is gonna have a lot of proofs to look over!
Like I said, good weekend. Today is church, lunch, nap, and editing time for me. Hopefully Isaak will be awake in time to get ice cream this afternoon....we'll see......

VBS for Sydaleigh

I enrolled Sydaleigh in Vacation Bible School this week. It's Monday-Friday, for three hours each morning. I just Love that she is doing VBS. I remember as a kid my mom would make us do VBS every summer through our church, and I just loved it. And of course, Sydaleigh loves it too.
This is the first time Sydaleigh has been away from me for this long on a consistent basis. (sigh) I'm assuming this is what school is going to be like when we reach that milestone. It's hard for me to hand her over to someone else for a period of time and not know every little detail of what she's doing without me. I don't think I'll ever get over that one. However; she is very good about filling me in on all her adventures, even if it's not in too much detail, she still gives me the gyst.

As we were leaving the fellowship hall today, where she plays duck duck goose till I come to get her, I gave her one dollar to put in the offering box. Which then led to a discussion over lunch about the importance of sharing our money so we can help people who don't have as much. Joy filled her face at the thought of sharing more money tomorrow, from her own piggy back, to help more people. (ah, my heart)

Foundation...laying more of that foundation....

Money Suckers

Don't you just LOVE it when you bring your car into the fixer place to get new tires,
expecting to only be paying for new tires,
and expecting those new tires to cost you $200....
only to receive a phone call from the car fixer place an hour later telling you "it would be in the best interest of our car if you replaced such and such, but it will only run you $380"
total?
"no, extra, in addition to the $200 you're paying for the tires"
Huh, of course it does.
So now the car that you brought in for a tire change expecting to only be paying $200 for is now running you closer to $600 for something else....
nice....
but then, in true car fixer place fashion, when you go to pick the car up your bill has somehow mysteriously jumped up another $200 bringing your bill to a whopping $800, which was previously only suppose to be $600, which in the beginning was only suppose to be $200!

BRAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Girl's night!

Laughing till you have to pee, too much food for one person, chocolate delights sent straight from heaven, stories out the wazoo, lugging a vintage suit case around Old Market and getting enough weird eyes and comments to last a lifetime.....just another night out with the girls.

"BRAHHHHHHHH!!"

That would be the sound of me breathing FIRE on the maintenance outside my house right now!!
The maintenance that I didn't schedule to be here until 3pm, and it is only 1:48.
The maintenance that is slamming a ladder up and down and up and down on my second story.
The maintenance that is hammering into my gutter causing a very earthquake like effect in my home.
The maintenance that is no doubt going to wake up my slumbering kids because they are being so blasted noisy!
Oh my gosh, this is ridiculous! It wasn't this loud when there were trackers, smashers, and dump trucks in my yard last week.....
BRAHHHHHHHHH!!!! (that's more fire comin' at ya!!!)

More new words

In the past two weeks Marvelly has added
Mine
Up
pease (please)
dog
fish
stop
and Uh-Oh
(with attempts to verbalize 'thank you')
to her ever expanding vocabulary.

However, out of the dozen+ words that she can now say she is heavily favoring "MINE!" the most right now. Seriously, what is it with kids?! Is it not enough that when somebody takes your toy that you yell at them in their face and hit them somewhere on the body...now you have to throw "MINE!" at them too...just to make sure they understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that you don't want them playing with whatever it is you've claimed????!
Kripey!
Its gotten so bad that Marvelly will say "Mine!" even when no one is touching anything. She'll just walk up to you and very emphatically say "Mine!", and I'll look back at her like, "I don't have anything!!"
It's like she has to repeat it every so often to make sure she doesn't forget it, because by golly this is an important word to know!!
Ahh, the joy of an older sibling.

new gem of a rocker

$20.

sturdy.
fresh paint.
perfect size for two little tooshies.

sitting on a new super clearance area rug from Target-it was meant to be!

Adventures with Mimi

Mumma came for a visit last week. She drove over 1100 miles from Georgia, by herself, to see us. It had been over a year since we all had seen each other so we were long overdue for a visit together. She pulled into town last Monday and headed back out yesterday morning.
Gosh we had fun.
I had fun.
My Mom had fun.
The girls had fun.
Of course we did what we always do...go for long walks, swing in the back yard, watch movies every night, talk, laugh, take pictures, go shopping, sight see, fart around...
It was so good to spend time with her.
Naturally I saved a few projects that had been on my to-do list for when she came...she helped me with some gardening and painting a big frame for the girl's room.
It was a great time.

here's some of what we did.....

We walked and played in the rain under clear sunny skies...
(really, it was pouring down rain and the sun was blaring-those two don't usually go together)

stood under an umbrella, or under our rain coat hood

danced in the mud...

and trecked it all in the house :)


next stop, Plattsmouth....
Of course I had to take my Mom to our favorite little city spot. We went to this awesome antique store on Main street and I found the cutest rocking chair for 20 bucks, in perfect condition, repainted, and just big enough for both girls to squeeze into. This place was such a gem, like most everything in this town.

we strolled the grounds of their beautiful city hall, rolled in the grass...

ate at the soda shop

escaped the looming thunderstorm up ahead

took a scenic drive and found a field of huge sun flowers getting ready to bloom

another fantastic outing here; glad my Mom was able to visit this town with me....

up next-the Train Museum, because a trip to Omaha isn't complete without stopping here.
Every time I come it feels like I'm stepping back in time.

this place is so old and grand and beautiful-of course my Mom loved it.


We stopped in Old Bellevue on Friday to see the First Presbyterian Church which is also the oldest in Nebraska. We did a lot of historical vintage sightseeing with my Mom, which happens to be right up both our alleys. We love this kind of stuff.


Saturday we Safari'd
What a fun trip this was. We got to see so many animals- elk, wolves, bears, bison, deer...


the bison were so close you could reach out and touch them, it was very cool.

Naturally none of us could resist looking ridiculous and climbing atop these stone bison.

(except my Mom)


(Mumma found out while she was here that she has a herniated disk-so of course that is an open invitation for getting jumped on in this house!)


We love the Mimi round here....let the four month countdown to Hilton Head Island begin...